


The Road Unraveled

by arkosic



Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: Faux Grimoire, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-09-27
Packaged: 2018-12-14 18:25:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 2,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11788872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arkosic/pseuds/arkosic
Summary: "Take out the stitches. Start over."Disconnected shorts and drabbles in the Destiny setting.





	1. Middle Man [Yarrow]

Not for the first time, Yarrow wished she had a bit more flexibility to her face-plate; humans and Awoken alike seemed to respond better to scrunched-up eyes and wiggling nasal flaps than they did any measure of irritation she flashed at them. Leaning into personal space crossed the boundaries of organic-synthetic communication well enough, at least, so the Hunter gave that a try.

“Thievery.”

The trader raised her eyebrows in gentle unsurprise and a complete lack of intimidation. “Business.”

“Thievery,” Yarrow repeated, and waved the spool of sapphire wire at her. “Financial assault, dare I say, and I sodding well do. This isn’t spinmetal, Cavanough, we can’t just go scrape the next crop of it off the cliffs! Oh, they might be weaving new stuff down in the City stalls, but that art’s half lost, isn’t it? Nowhere near the same strength of what Noony Ul-Hassan and his apprentices worked, pieces of which have to be found, and worked through the process of wire-extraction, and the spools bound up so nicely and neatly that they’re worth more than _two Dreg-shat gallons of fuel_.”

The eyebrows ticked up another notch. Not, Yarrow reflected, an encouraging sign.

“It’s a very pretty claim, I’ll grant you,” Cavanough said. “But it will only become a valuable one if it can be proven.”

“We weren’t programmed to lie,” she said.

“No – that much you learned from us, I’m afraid.” The trader held out a hand, palm-up, baring thick calluses. “While no wire is stamped with a crafter’s mark, I can verify whether it’s of a quality that may lead to a bargain with more appeal to you.”

Glaring down at the implacably calm gaze, Yarrow gave brief thought to pointing out that this fuel was going to a Guardian, and Guardians were the reason she even had a stall to cold-heartedly rob people from within instead of a career in trying to haggle with the Fallen. She dismissed it in the next moment; venting air loudly and pointedly, she dropped the spool into the waiting hand and propped her own upon her hips. “I’ll just wait here, shall I?”

“Only if you wish.”

Yarrow clacked her jaw rudely at the flap as it closed behind the trader, obscuring the wares and tools she held back in the main tent. It wasn’t as though this was all that unexpected a turn, but when pushing one’s luck there was always the hope it would make it over the edge.

A low hum signalled her Ghost’s approach, drawing in close to her auditories from the polite distance it usually kept when she was conversing with others.

“I trust you did pay attention to the part where I said I only _thought_ that chest-piece dated back to Ul-Hassan’s era,” Asterisk said quietly.

“Your thought’s better than my guess.” She turned her head and winked an eye-light at it. “Didn’t say it was his craft anyway, only that it was higher quality than what comes off the street; the armouring’s old enough to back that up. Dropping a name or two just smooths these things along. Gives it that professional touch.” She tugged officiously at the set of her cloak across her shoulders, and then added, “Besides, if I’m going to go pinching bits from Euc then I’m damn well going to get the best price for them.”

“Very noble,” the Ghost said dryly. “It was Noor, by the way.”

“Huh?”

“Noor Ul-Hassan. Not _Noony_.”

“I did say just a touch.”

Euclid himself hadn’t been able to remember where or even quite when he’d acquired the chest-piece, which was part of the reason she’d taken it; he had a better memory for things that actually sparked his very enthusiastic interest. There might have been no formal agreement struck between the Hunter and the reclusive Venusian Warlock, but for all its unspoken elements it was a deal that worked well for both casual partners – she was careful to check that he didn’t mind losing what she took, and he got to have some of his endless clutter turned into more useful things. Just because he had survived for Traveler knew how long without newly spun fabric or a Sparrow so ancient an aggressive sneeze could reduce it to fragments didn’t mean he had to keep living that way.

The tent flapped again, announcing the trader’s return, and Ghost and Guardian turned to meet her.

“Three gallons per single spool,” Cavanough said, “and I’ll make you the addition of a clean set of seals, if only because you refrained from trading on your Guardian status.”

“Not my style,” Yarrow said, every word weighted with virtue. Her wire had clearly shown worth, and three per spool would see her Sparrow topped up with her glimmer savings yet to be dinted. “Very well, if only because I have other people to be robbed by today. Let’s say…three for nine, then?”

At the trader’s nod, she fished about in her pouch for the pair to match the one she’d already passed over, while Cavanough shifted a set of boxes to retrieve the receipt datasheet that would allow Yarrow to pick up the physical component of her purchase. Brandishing the spools between her fingers, she looked up again - and paused. In moving the boxes, Cavanough had revealed another half-open, and Yarrow could see the flat covers of books tucked neatly inside.

“Those yours?”

“Hm?” Cavanough turned to followed her gesture. “Ah, the books. Some are part of my work, others…” She cast a speculative look at the Hunter. “Others I would call less essential.”

She hesitated, hand still held out. Books could trade pretty highly in the City, even in a stall that didn’t make it their primary business; but she’d made a good deal just now, and it was off her friend’s goods, even if they weren’t ones he was going to be making any sort of deal with himself. Getting a good price was really the absolute minimum she could do - and just because he liked reading the same things a dozen times over didn’t mean he had to.

“Mind if I take a gander?”

A slight smile touched Cavanough’s lips.

Not, Yarrow reflected sourly, an encouraging sign.


	2. The Human Condition [Grimoire]

Have you ever been down to watch the civilians train? Yes, of course there are some that train. Not everyone’s six generations deep behind the walls and thinking you need a Ghost before you can fire a gun.

I watched two of them kick each other for nearly an hour once. Over and over, landing the same kicks in the same places, until they could barely stand. Had to lean on each other just to be able to walk away from it. Heh. Probably some sort of allegory in that.

They do it as conditioning. Building resistance. Toughening the skin, buffering the bone, learning just how much hurt they can take while still kicking back. Pain with a purpose.

Now, you won’t see two Guardians kicking each other for an hour out of anything but a dire lack of something better to do, because it doesn’t work like that for us. Your Ghost scraped you together out of rusty pylons, a stunted bush, and the dirt your sorry carcass was half-buried under. Tomorrow you might have your entire body reduced to its sub-atomic components and wake up with bits of Cabal mingled in there. Calluses? Scars? They’re for bodies that live and grow, not raw matter reconstituted into in a reliable shape.

We still need conditioning – but up here, in our heads. If being ready and willing to bruise was all it took, the Traveler wouldn’t have called us, after all. We’re here because we can go those few steps further. We can be willing to break.

So hold still this time, alright? Your mind only says ‘flinch’ because it still thinks you’re human. You’re not. You’re old cities and warm earth, and this blade isn’t going to be what unravels you for good.

Breathe through it for as long as you still have breath, and remember: there is purpose in pain.


	3. One-Way Runway [Yarrow]

“Goggles on,” Yarrow said.

They’d detached the visual strip from Yarrow’s helmet without much difficulty, and Euclid settled them into place where his optics might have been had his designer not apparently been overly fond of cave-born creatures, snapping the elastic officiously. “Check.”

“Padding in place.”

This time it was his chest he patted down, the mossy foliage they’d stuffed in every available crack in the armour peeking out through the sleeves and giving him an odd sort of leafy collar around the neck. “Check!”

“Launchpad cleared,” she called over her shoulder.

“Oh, no fear,” was the sour response from behind her. The pair of blue lights squinted back at them from the safe distance the Ghosts held, clustered together to form a single disapproving gaze. They had found so much common ground that it was difficult to tell which one of them was actually speaking. “This bed is going to be entirely of your own making.”

“I’ll take that as confirmation that medics are on standby as well.” The Hunter turned back to run a last assessing eye over their arrangement, slowly rubbing her hands together. “Ready to go, pilot?”

Euclid leaned back, dropping his head backwards to beam up at her, a bright, excited flickering in his throat to complement the brief thumbs-up he offered before re-gripping the Sparrow’s handlebars. “Aye-aye, mission control!”

She felt herself transmit a grin in answer, a warmth that pulsed through her in waves, down her spine, down her arms, building in uncontainable intensity as she laid her palms flat against the drive core, the golden glow breaking out around the edges of her fingers like slivers of sunlight.

“Alright! Firing up the engine in three, two…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because what's the point of superpowers if you don't abuse them occasionally? Euclid belongs to saltineofswing.


	4. Investment and Return [Grimoire]

We won’t live to see the Traveler wake.

Oh, dial down those big doe eyes. A week ago I cut the throat of a Kell still sitting pretty on her throne, I’m hardly leaving you to take up my cloak any time soon. You’d just trip over it or use it for a tablecloth or somethin’.

Let me rephrase: we can’t live _and_ see the Traveler wake.

No, no, think about it. Where were the Ghosts when the Darkness scoured our worlds? Where were the Guardians? We’re the last bright hope against blah blah blah, but there’s no sense in holding back your secret weapon until you’ve already lost.

Billions. There were billions of us, once, and this entire system was our home. We fucking lost.

My point is that even a Titan knows better. They hold, but they don’t hold back, not like that. Nobody would unless there was something else to consider – something like cost. A great, wondrous weapon with such a great, terrible cost that you hesitate and you hesitate and you don’t pull that trigger until you’re as good as dying anyway.

The Traveler sacrificed itself, right? That’s how the story goes. That’s the first thing they cram down the throat of every wobble-kneed spark clapping eyes on our glorious bauble for the first time.

I think we’re the sacrifice.

 _Think about it_. The cryptarchs have been digging for years. Where are the stories of Golden Age warriors holding the sun in one hand and lightning in the other, of the dead rising again to lend aid? Light whispers in our ears and walks in our bodies, but it’s not in everyone and it wasn’t always there. Whose Light keeps your heart beating, sister? Whose _life_ are we living?

And what happens to us when it decides it wants that life for its own again?

I’m just saying. Maybe you should consider what’s truly being traded when you hand those motes to the Speaker.


	5. Towerfall [Shin]

The City burns. Shin finds out, after.

“You call yourself a Guardian?” someone shouts, up in his face, smoke rough in their lungs and familiar in his head. The flap of their mark is torn and bloody, resurrections too hasty in the heat of battle to mend every detail.

“No,” he says, truthful.

He knows the law and the lore. Guardians protect. Guardians prevent.

Shin has always been the aftermath.


	6. Generation Gap [Grimoire]

I hear a lot of Guardians claiming to like children. How sincere they say it is a good way to tell the volunteers from Cayde’s, uh, _volunteers_ , but it’s a waste of everyone’s resources to send the real curmudgeons down to us so most of them seem to at least think they mean the words.

You watch their eyes the moment they step out of the transport, though, and you’ll start to see it too. Brown eyes, bright eyes, irises or wired bulbs; you watch them once they actually get a look at our beautiful blossoms of youth and you’ll be watching every single one of them go goggle-gaped with what I can only describe as world-turning revelation.

They don’t like children. How can they? They don’t even know what a child is. Kids are a _concept_ to them, the personification of innocence and hope and our wholesome fragile future. If that’s what gets them through a day of punting shanks and wrestling vandals then I’m not about to judge – but it’s a concept that doesn’t hold up to the reality of little Jemala running out pantsless and excited with a double handful of her own shit because she finally dropped the toy she ate on a dare two days earlier, y’know?

Yeah, she was fine. I burned the toy.

Most of the Guardians don’t quite survive the encounter unscathed, by my reckoning. They walk away changed. For the better, I like to think, a little more worldly for having experienced a temper tantrum or seven. There might be a sense of loss or betrayal involved, but there’s also more honesty. Where’s the heart in fighting for a City and people that don’t even exist, eh? If they don’t think we’re worth protecting when we’re ugly and loud and just a little bit repugnant then I’m not about to put my trust in them to begin with.

Some of the others, though… I suppose it goes both ways, the concept thing. When I was new to this job, and I stood in for my first Guardian meet-and-greet with the kids, I thought _dark and dust, what a terrible idea_. You know? They might have been alive – properly alive – once but they’re the Traveler’s things now. They’re Guardians. They can’t look at a child squalling over a scraped knee and think, ah well, when I was that age-

I wasn’t wrong, exactly, but I wasn’t counting on the ones who’d look at the crying kid and light up with the realisation of why people cry at all. The ones who’d listen to them chattering about school so intense it’s like they’re trying to learn something themselves. The ones clumsily fumbling along in some game of make-believe and starting to grin with the fun of it. Maybe they can’t look back to memory, but I hadn’t considered what they could find in the here and now.

Always hardest to watch those ones leave. Back to the top of their Tower. We try and get regulars where we can, but…well. When they say someone’s not available, I can’t say I always have the heart to ask why.

Funny. Didn’t used to worry when I was a child.


	7. To Hunt [Shin]

Shin lies belly-flat among scrub and stone for twenty-six minutes, midday sun baking him into the earth. On the twenty-seventh, he puts three bullets through a Fallen Captain.

“Hell, Malphur,” the Guardian shouts, shading their eyes. Scarred metal draws seamlessly back together along their arm; dark stains sink through fabric to the flesh that spilled them, a river in reverse. “Is _that_ where you’ve been this whole time?”

In the moment before Shin fired, the Guardian had been moving eagerly to meet the Captain’s sparking blades.

It is the moment he decides he will go alone.


	8. Once Upon [P, WN, E-3 & JW]

Before the moon and the vault and the shadow, there is this: four legends in a bar.

Pahanin and Wei Ning are having an argument, loud and passionate, over something. Maybe someone. They’ve wandered so far and through so much traditional hyperbole and quick-tongued teasing that there’s no telling just what set them off this time. Pahanin likes to talk and Wei Ning likes to fight - maybe that’s all the reason needed.

Eriana is crossed arms and cool dignity, though it’s not difficult to be the latter in this company. There’s still no mistaking the warm amusement in her voice when she speaks, nor which side her pointed interjections favour, for all that she doesn’t seem invested in the topic itself.

As for Jaren - they’re not even sure Jaren is awake, truth be told. Draped in his chair with a loose-limbed tiredness, head tilted back against the wall, holster on his hip as ever. He’s not two days back from the field and he’ll be out again tomorrow.

When his fellow Hunter turns to him in search of brotherly solidarity in this battle, however, he slivers one eye open and lifts a hand in what might be a lacklustre shrug or an attempted shooing. Pahanin, of course, turns immediately to point a triumphant finger at Wei Ning as though this proves his point _exactly_.

Crackling fists slam down against the table; the salt shaker shatters. Jaren half-startles out of his chair as Pahanin rocks back in his own, hands raised, already laughing. Eriana’s eyes sweep in graceful disdain towards the ceiling as she sweeps the scattered salt and glass aside, but she’s casting soft violet across all their faces that’s visible from halfway across the room.

They’ll be dead on some tomorrow and have always known it, but here and now and in these moments - this is still their time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is technically an old bit of meta, but it has enough rhythm to it to go in here, I think. Especially since Destiny 2 has come out and stated that Eriana and Wei Ning met when Pahanin introduced them in a bar. (Jaren's really just there because I love the idea of Jaren as the weird drifter friend.)


End file.
